


glad we tried

by 1001cranes



Series: 2k18 WIP Amnesty [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Minor Shaun Gilmore/Vax'ildan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: “I’ve decided,” Vex says one night. “You have to stop this nonsense with Keyleth.”aka welcome to the terrordome that is Vax's brain on relationships





	glad we tried

**Author's Note:**

> Hungrylikethewolfie once asked for: I'm sorry there's only one thing on my mind, ideal scenario for happy Vax/Gilmore resolution GO, DON'T SPARE THE DETAILS
> 
> So I spent 2.5k having Vax ruminate on his relationship with Keyleth and then lost steam. thanks brain.
> 
> Enjoy this look inside the terrordome aka vax’s brain, a brief breakup with keyleth, a brief fade to black with gilmore. 
> 
> I wrote 90% of this while drunk and 100% of it before they even hit the Feywild, in game, so its THAT OLD.

“I’ve decided,” Vex says one night. “You have to stop this nonsense with Keyleth.”

Vax decides to let this slide, more or less, because Vax is tired. Vax has spent a very large portion of the last few months of his life being tired, and the last person he wants to argue with tonight is his sister.

“You’ve decided, have you?” he asks. “The mistress of romance herself?“

Well. He did say more or less.

The lighting is dim enough that even Vax isn’t entirely sure if his sister rolls her eyes, though he would find it a fairly safe bet.

“Don’t be such an arse,” she says, and elbows him in the side. “You know precisely what I mean.”

“I can honestly say I don’t.”

“Vax’ildan. Dearest. Brother-mine.”

Ouch. She doesn’t break that one out very often.

“I love Keyleth. She’s fucking beautiful, as previously discussed, and she’s a good person besides. Any member of our little party is a catch, certainly - 

“Except Scanlan.”

“Well  _ obviously _ –” 

They share grins for a moment, twin flashes of teeth in the dark, before Vex takes another deep breath.

“With Keyleth… it seems as though the two of you spend every moment trying to keep it together. To even get something started. And every misstep brings you pain.”

Vax finds he has nothing to say around the lump in his throat.

“I don’t doubt that you love her,” Vex continues, more softly. “Truly, I don’t. She’s a very easy person to love, and deserving of it as well. As deserving as you are of her love, I should think. And there was a time I thought the two of you might be happy together, because you certainly  _ deserve _ to be happy. I’d encouraged it, even. But perhaps too much has changed. I do know that at this point watching the two of you dance around whatever in the world you’re dancing around makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.”

“That’s disgusting,” Vax grits out, because the lump in his throat is now so large it's threatening to pop out his ears and eyes.

“You’re disgusting!” Vex retorts, and from behind her Trinket makes a “wrooooomph” noise of agreement. “It’s agony, darling, and more to the point it’s not making anyone any happier. Not a single person. Isn’t even fun to watch anymore.”

“I wanted…” he says, but can’t think of how to finish the sentence. Someone to love? Someone to love me? He has those things already, he knows. Something more?

“I know,” she says, far gentler than most would think her capable of. “I’m not saying– well, I don’t know what I’m saying, precisely, except that neither of you are particularly happy, and I love the both of you too much to let that stand without saying something.”

Vax wishes he could argue. But his sister, ever surprising, is as eloquent as a Bard when she decides to be. 

“Ugh,” she says. “Shove over, numpty,” and he obediently moves a few inches so she can settle down next to him and lean her head against his shoulder. “I could be sleeping, you know. I could be cuddled up with Trinket in my lovely bedroom in a magic mansion eating some dessert chicken –”

“I thought the chicken torte wasn’t half bad –”

“– or trying out my new broom perch,” Vex continues airily. “But no, no, of course not, it’s all drama all the time with you, isn’t it. I love these midnight talks. I love dealing with your ennui. I’m supposed to be the younger, carefree sibling–”

“Younger by  _ five minutes _ ,” Vax protests, and the rest of the night is lost to a brief fight that has them scrabbling over Trinket until the sad bear noises become too much to ignore.

| |

The thrice-damned thing of it is, Vex might be right.

Vax knows it isn’t that Keyleth is any less beautiful, or kind, or dangerous; it isn’t that Vax likes her any less, or won’t sit next to her by the fire, or won’t listen to and argue with her moralizing by turns. Those things are perhaps  _ more _ enjoyable, now that he isn’t wondering if this is a good time to kiss her or not. They’ve been dancing on needles around one another recently, delicate and upsetting no matter how they’ve sliced it, no matter how carefully they’ve stepped. 

“Kiki,” he says, “come help me with the demon birds.”

“Cockatrices,” Percy corrects, even as he wipes pieces of said bird and black powder off his face and glasses. He pauses. “Or is the plural simply cockatrice? Cockatrix?”

“Demon birds,” Vax and Vex say together, which drowns out whatever Scanlan has to say about a cock-a-trix. Blinding, petrifying, demon shitbirds. No friend of Vax’s, for certain.

“What should we take?” Keyleth asks. She crouches down next to Vax, and he hands her one of his daggers. “The beaks?”

“And the eyes, I think. At least on this one.” Vax rocks back on his heels for a moment. “Both sets of wings are pretty done for.”

“We could get some scales off the tail. Or just… the whole tail.”

“Not that much room in the Bag of Colding,” Vex announces. “Although the Spriggan bits are starting to go a bit off. I say we toss ‘em.”

“Awwwww,” Grog says, and the big lug actually looks a little disappointed. “I worked really hard killing that thing!”

Scanlan whacks him companionably on the knee. “We know, big guy. But you did a good job here too!”

It takes only a moment for Grog’s face to brighten. “Yeah, I did!” and makes one of those rumbling growling noises that Pike would normally follow up with one of her own. 

Vax and Keyleth’s eyes catch, in that moment, and she smiles at him.

“I miss her too,” she says, and it’s very nearly a whisper, not that Grog is paying them much attention. She’s been working on whispering; Vax can tell.

“We’ll be back with her soon enough.” He taps his dagger against the closer cockatrice. “Eyes or tails, Keeks?”

“Tails,” she says decisively, and they get to work before some other faerie monstrosity attacks.

| |

That night, once Vox Machina has settled once again in Scanlan’s ridiculous mansion, Vax eats dinner with his friends. He laughs. He drinks. He tries all the servants’ new chicken recipes, many of which are horrifying. He prays in the chapel. He goes to his room to sleep. He dreams.

The Raven Queen visits him this night. She doesn’t always, not even when he asks. There’s no pattern to it that he can see, but tonight she is here, for whatever reason she visits him.

“Champion,” she whispers. It is as much his name now as Vax, Vax’ildan, the way Vex says  _ brother _ . Indelible. Inescapable. **“** My Champion.”

It’s not a dream, precisely. Or it doesn’t feel like a dream. She hovers over him, over his bed, and something like fingers, or feathers, pass through his hair. 

It’s far more comforting than he’s able to explain.

| |

“Do you think,” he asks Scanlan in the morning, over breakfast. “that from now on you could build a chapel in the mansion?”

Scanlan’s eyebrows fling upwards and settle back down. “I - sure. I don’t see why not. Uh. Plenty of space. Anything… in particular?”

“Just a chapel,” Vax says. “An altar, maybe a statue.”

“I’ll put it in a tower!” Scanlan says, and snaps his fingers. “A new tower. I think I can do that.” He shrugs a little. “Eh. I’ll make it work.”

Grog barely acknowledges the exchange, plowing through what might be some kind of chicken pie. Vex smiles around a mug of tea. Percy is still asleep, having no doubt tinkered about in his workshop until well into the night. And Keyleth - Keyleth just  _ looks  _ at him. 

She looks sad, he thinks. Or perhaps just confused. They haven’t really talked about this either, Vax remembers. Not properly. After his last visit to the Raven Queen’s temple, she’d said only that he hadn’t changed. And as much as he’d wanted to believe that, in the beginning of all this, he knows now that is certainly untrue. Perhaps more importantly, he isn’t certain he even wants to be who he was before. Maybe Keyleth was right in that-- that this was meant to be, or something he was searching for. Maybe the Raven Queen saw something in him she wouldn’t have accepted in someone else. 

He isn’t the Vax he was. Not by a longshot. 

Winter’s breath.  _ Damnation _ .

| |

“I hate it when you’re right,” he hisses at Vex, later, and stealths away before she can gloat or elbow him in the side or expose anymore of his own psyche to him.

| |

In true Vox Machina fashion, Vax hardly has time to think about it, and certainly no time to actually  _ talk  _ to Keyleth before they’re waist deep in a plot between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. They have to make a deal with a hag before all is said and done - the Robe of Flaying being a rather perfect bartering chip, despite Keyleth’s objections - and they’re finally granted access to the forest where Fenthras resides.

“Well. It’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?” Percy says, in typical understated fashion. Even his bright scarlet vest seems dim in the muck and gloom of the trees around them. 

“A  _ bit _ ,” Grog agrees, begrudgingly, and Vex declares it “appallingly creepy,” which rather echoes Vax’s thoughts. He makes a mental note to attune the leathers to acid damage at their next short rest.

Keyleth shakes her head. “It’s  _ sick _ ,” and she looks a little ill herself.

“You alright, Kiki?” Vax asks. “You’re looking a little… unwell.”

Scanlan makes a tsk of agreement. “A bit green. And not in the good way.” 

“It’s here,” Keyleth says, and her eyes have gone a bit unfocused, the flow of magic moving over her and spilling out from her hands. “I mean, it’s  _ definitely  _ here. The tree…”  

A rustling noise comes up around them, a low hiss, and Grog tightens his grip on his great axe. 

Vax looks to his sister. He sees nothing, and from the way the skin at the corner of her mouth tightens, he can tell that neither does she. 

After a long moment the green-brown-gold flicker around Keyleth slowly dissipates. “It’s in the forest. The tree, I mean. It’s deeper. The very center of everything. Like… like rot at the core of an apple.”

“ _ Wonderful _ ,” Percy mutters. He’s dropped his hand from where it had been resting on Retort’s grip. “Well. At least that’s a simple enough direction.”

“Any other helpful hints?” Vex asks. “Tips?  _ Warnings _ ?”

Keyleth shakes her head. “I couldn’t understand much. The plants are sick. The animals, too. Some of them are just weak, but some of them are… changed.”

“Evil?”

“Changed,” Keyleth says firmly. 

_ Evil _ , Scanlan mouths at him.  _ EEEEEEVIL _ .

| |

When they return to Whitestone, evil tree vanquished and Fenthras clutched tightly in his sister’s greedy little hands, Vax knows he needs to talk to Keyleth.

It doesn’t happen immediately. They’re all in need of a long rest, and Keyleth is particularly exhausted after performing the plane shift on top of everything. Vax himself sleeps for a solid ten hours and eats a large enough breakfast for even the servants at Whitestone to side-eye him when they think he can’t see before going to look for Keyleth.

The servants tell him she has gone into town, and it’s easy enough to find her lying underneath the Sun Tree. She looks at peace there, Vax thinks. Somewhat less out of place than she usually looks in cities. Though half-elves might usually pass through cities of men without much notice, an Ashari Druid is not so unremarkable. She looks wild, with her head bent toward the tree, red hair flowing out from around the circlet and spreading across the grass.

“Hey Kiki,” he says. 

She jackknifes to a sitting position, so quick it makes him smile, and beams at him. “Hi Vax!”

“You doing okay?”

“I’m good,” she says. “And the Sun Tree is great!”

“That’s good,” he says, somewhat inanely, and sits down next to her, cross-legged. The Ashari have small cities of their own, of course, but Vax realizes that he’s never asked if it bothers Keyleth to not being around nature all the time. And she does seem to have some kind of affinity for the Sun Tree. “Percy will be happy to hear it.”

Keyleth pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them. “It’s nice to see the Sun Tree doing well.”

“It is. Listen.” Vax rubs at his forehead. “Keyleth, I wanted to talk about something with you.”

“Oh, I thought so,” Keyleth says, and Vex blinks at her. “I already talked to Percy.”

“Percy?”

“He’s good at explaining things, sometimes. To me.”

“Is he.”

“You’d think he wouldn’t be,” Keyleth continues, oblivious. “Considering how different we are. But I think we both sit on the outside, sometimes -- you and Vex understand each other, of course, and Scanlan and Grog do too, in a weird way, and Pike, when she’s here -- and then there’s Percy and me. Being weird.” 

“You’re not weird,” Vax says, offended. “Who called you weird?”

“Vax,” Keyleth says seriously. “We’re all a  _ little  _ weird.”

  
  


“We’re not really very good at this courting business.”

“Courting?”’

“Wooing?” Keyleth’s forehead wrinkles. “Feelings… stuff.”

“No,” Vax agrees. He can’t hold back a smile. “We aren’t very good at the feelings stuff.”

“Which I guess is sort of the point of courting,” Keyleth continues, very seriously. “But I’m glad we tried.”

“I’m glad we tried too,” Vax says, and that’s that.

| |

Vex has the good grace to at least wait a week. 

“As a separate point,” she says, plonking herself down beside Vax in the pub. “Gilmore.”

“Gilmore.”

“Yes, Gilmore.” She puts her elbows on the table, and props her chin on her hand. “Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.” 

“I’m not playing  _ dumb _ , Stubby, I -- I just broke up with Keyleth, I’m not gonna. Turn around and bother Gilmore.”

“You wouldn’t be  _ bothering _ him.” Vex sighs. “When it comes to Gilmore… I hadn’t seen you put this much effort into running away since the white dragon destroyed our home.”

That sits between them, for a moment.

“But Gilmore’s no dragon, brother,” Vex continues, quietly. “He loves you so much it hurts to watch. And the look on your face when you said goodbye to him…”

“I know,” he says, shortly. “I know, I just -- it felt bad at the time, but I thought it was because I didn’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him!”

“So don’t do it like that. Not again. You’ve learned.” 

_ Have I _ , Vax wants to say, grumpily, but as always Vex is probably right.

Gods. She is going to be  _ insufferable _ .

| |

Vax almost goes to Gilmore’s shop first thing the next morning, but he forces himself to wait until noon. Gilmore wasn’t the earliest of risers.

 

“I know you want to punch me in the face,” Vax says, bluntly. “I think I even deserve it, a little. Its part of why I’m here.”

Sherri’s polite grin sharpens. “To let me punch you in the face?”

Vax snorts. “To talk to Gilmore about what an arse I’ve been.”

Sherri pulls her glasses down the tip of her nose. She looks Vax up and down. Sniffs. And pushes the glasses back up. “I’ll go get him.”

One gauntlet overcome, at least.

 

“Vax'ildan,” Gilmore’s voice - warm, and amused, and inescapably wonderful, washes over him. “What brings you to darken my doorway this time?” 

Vax takes a deep breath. “An apology. And, I suppose, a promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was super not into Keyleth/Vax for a long time because it felt like they were pushing it SO HARD. JEEZ, GUYS. TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF.
> 
> anyWAY that's another one out the WIP box


End file.
